RICHMOND, Va. -- Richmond Sheriff Antionette Irving lead a march from the city jail to a peace fountain in a Richmond park Saturday morning.
The walk began at 10 a.m. at the Richmond City Justice Center and continued just over a mile to the peace fountain honoring community activist Alicia Raisin at Jefferson Park.
"We have to give people an opportunity to have the opportunity to do the right thing," Irving told the crowd. "We have to put people in better circumstances and give them better choices and better chances. If we don't do that who else will?"
Irving said that she relates to people who are tired and frustrated.
"We've got to do something about it. All this walking and no doing, it would be irrelevant," she said. "It means nothing if we are not willing to go out and vote."
Organizers said the walk was to show "solidarity and unity" amid unrest in Richmond, the Commonwealth and the U.S.
Demonstrations were sparked across the country and in Richmond in protest of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died on Memorial Day after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.
Social distancing was "strongly encouraged," according to a flyer for the event.
Richmonders gather to pray, honor lives lost to police brutality
The event comes after hundreds of protesters marched through Forest Hill on Friday night demanding change and protesting police brutality and the death of Floyd,.
Some of their demands include enacting a Citizens Review Board for the Richmond Police Department and to have charges dropped against those arrested for peaceful protesting.
On Tuesday, Richmond mayor Levar Stoney told demonstrators that he is committed to working towards dismantling racist systems and policies.
On Monument Avenue, peaceful gatherings continued Friday with many people praying, while others surrounded the Robert E. Lee monument and remembered the lives lost to police brutality.
